CC extremely frustrating!

[wonderings]

We upgraded to CC a while back, had to because of some clients we have. Anyways, things worked good, no real complaints except I do not like renting my software like this.

Well today is a fun new surprise. I cannot log into CC, tried to reset my password and that does not work. Vague error message that does not help in the least. I then try and log in via adobe.com, cannot get in their either. So I try to reset my password on the off chance I have forgotten it (99% I have not). Now it says my email is not associated with an adobe account. Well I am certainly getting emails to that account saying I have paid, and the only other email we have at work is not it either. I truly hate CC and wish there was some competition for Adobe that was worth looking into switching. I like the apps, but hate the way they are doing things now, causing more headaches that were never there before.

 

[rmac2125]

I agree 100% or maybe 99%. LOL

 

[wonderings]

I got on with chat support, seems they are having some technical issues on their end, that is the reason for not being able to log in. Keep it simple, over complicating this whole process only brings more complicated problems.

 

[pdan]

Seems to have been down for 20 hours at this point.
The forums are inaccessible with the same error.

 

[KopyBoss]

I agree 100% or maybe 99%. LOL

Yes……Hate it with a passion

 

[mazengh]

welcome to the cloud... you live and die by it..

 

[wonderings]

Everything is back to normal today.. till the next time.

 

[mazengh]

you lost one day of production... does adobe make it up for you?

 

[Stephen Marsh]

Being a subscriber is it’s own reward.


Stephen Marsh

 

[mastegman]

you lost one day of production... does adobe make it up for you?

I'm not sure what the problem was exactly. I don't know why you would lose a day of production. Why did you need to log in to CC? My understanding is that you don't even have to be connected to use any of the applications. You will lose all of the syncing services and activation is suspended but you don't lose any functionality that I am aware of. I thought I read that all the apps will operate like this for a month with checking the activation. Adobe designed it that way for mobile users who have to go to remote places where there is no internet connection. In this case it was Adobe's server so you would still have access to the internet and your clients. I just disconnected my computer and tested a few applications to make sure. No problem. Am I missing something?

Which applications were you trying to use?

Mark

 

[prwhite]

Here's a reasonably good article about why Adobe’s Creative Cloud is a really, really bad idea. Worth a read.

 

[mastegman]

Here's a reasonably good article about why Adobe’s Creative Cloud is a really, really bad idea. Worth a read.

To me this article is just another hollow 'rant' like so many others. The comments to this article only go to support my contribution here and reinforce the point about functionality. CC 'pings' Adobe once a month for monthly subscribers and every 99 days for annual subscribers. This means that a VERY small percentage of users may have been affected IF their subscription happened to ping Adobe for activation during the outage. This might have been a problem for large scale users with multiple seats all licensed on the same day or using a site licence. For everybody else it was carry on regardless.

There has been a lot of hysteria about CC, and cloud services in general, mostly based on the fact that users will have to continue to pay for their software, even though the cost is comparable to the irregular updates of the past (that did not include all of the cloud based services that come with CC). Cloud services provide more accessibility, better redundancy and higher security than I would ever be able to afford as a lone ranger and Adobe is not alone in this regard. Some critics of Adobe CC go so far as to speculate about the prospect of Adobe 'disappearing' and leaving us unable to do anything! One thing is for sure, if we all continue to use old software and never pay for an upgrade that is exactly what will happen.

Mark

 

[chevalier]

Some critics of Adobe CC go so far as to speculate about the prospect of Adobe 'disappearing' and leaving us unable to do anything! One thing is for sure, if we all continue to use old software and never pay for an upgrade that is exactly what will happen.

I generally stay out of this argument now-a-days as ostriches aren't going to hear you with their head in the sand anyway. Regardless, with this statement you've inspired me to elaborate....

A lot of people working in printing want to treat software as a large capital purchase of a fixed asset. Buying software is not like buying a printing press. Software should really have never worked this way to begin with and market forces are finally pushing the SaaS (software-as-a-service) model to be the norm. This is not a defense of Adobe as I have serious contentions with them; primarily being their monopolistic death grip on creative software. This is a defense of the SaaS model.

Purely from a business fundamentals and cash-flow perspective Adobe has set itself up for constant cash inflows and doesn't have to worry about large inflows and outflows based on development cycles anymore. This stabilizes income and allows development processes to take as long as they need instead of "we have to have product X out by January no matter what as we'll be out of cash". The old way gets you imperfect software which is then patched after their cash coffers are refilled when everyone buys the (possibly buggy) upgrades. Further, with Adobe SaaS model the customer gets an added bonus as he/she now gets the entire portfolio of Adobe applications at the cost of the old upgrade cycle for just a few of them. Perhaps there is room for improvement here say, a-la-carte $10 per app per month instead of all-or-nothing but only competition would bring that kind of thing into the market.

For a personal example:
Imagine if your employer paid you 3 years salary up front for 3 years of service. In said contract you are required to keep your skills up to date despite potentially unforeseen massive technological changes. Else you'll just be let go after 3 years. So during these 3 years you have to invest in education, development as well as keep your household in order with no guarantee that that contract will be renewed in 3, 4, 5 years. That would be very hard to plan for, right?

 

[almaink]

The cost may be comparable to you, but if you never own it, and are required to pay every month or loose it forever, it's not to me. We never updated to every new release here and I don't know many shops that did. It's a great deal for Adobe though, a constant cash-flow, but no different than leasing a car IMO for the end user.

 

[brent]

This means that a VERY small percentage of users may have been affected IF their subscription happened to ping Adobe for activation during the outage.

Unless you are the one being affected. In the tight deadline critical world of printing....That could be fatal.

 

[zoran]

I absolutely agree that Adobe has to make money somehow.
I personally have nothing against cloud, however the bigger issue to me that seems to be in a blind spot for many people is pricing.
If we paid the same amount of money as before for upgrade price of CS Standard, no argument there, however it is much more expensive than before.
Pro cloud people are defending it as you are getting much more.
Much more in our case is too much and we don't want it.
Why can't Adobe create Cloud for printers with reduced services that we want, just like they used to have CS and in that case make price comparable to what we were paying, nobody would be fighting it, I am sure.

As it stands, we used to buy 18 licenses of CS every time, occasionally skipping interim .5 versions
Now we pay for 3 CC licenses so we can convert files if needed be from CC to CS or make PDF's.
3 licenses for each of our three sites, otherwise we would pay for one only.

To top it off, usually we start seeing big uptake of CS incoming files when new version is real eased almost immediately.
That is not the case with CC, actually after initial flood, we are seeing less and less CC files (good if you ask me) which tells me Adobe cloud strategy will fail eventually if they do not change their pricing model (again, nothing against cloud, only price).

Just my 2 cents

 

[chevalier]

Once again - I am no Adobe defender. It's a damn shame that there isn't an alternative to Illustrator or Photoshop out there that I can take seriously.

On a side note:
I was also a buyer for a while and I can tell you that I avoided vendors who said "we can't take version 6, send us version 4 files". I shouldn't pay a premium of my company's time to convert files so that you can work with them. That is not to mention the problems that can occur with "down-saving" files. Some would say, provide me an incentive for my time and I will generate you a special set of files. However, discounting/keeping prices super-low to win the bid and not be able to maintain equipment/operators is a zero sum game that will only end one way. I forget the number but something like >33% of printers in North America have gone out of business in the past decade. This doesn't have anything to do with "because Adobe moved to SaaS".

almaink,
I don't know your personal situation so this is going to sound very harsh but if you cannot afford to maintain your equipment and remain profitable the market is likely telling you that you are in the wrong business. Yes, I do realize there are a lot of mom-and-pop and smaller shops that struggle to get by. That's where I started and at one point in my career when I was very young I helped facilitate the combination of 4 tiny shops into a small shop. It was brutal but it taught me a lot about the realities of capitalism/business. Digitizing all of the mix of paste-up and proto-digital was a completely nightmare.

brent,
How many times in your career have you heard "email is down", "CtP laser is daed", "the press' drive motor shorted out", etc.? This falls into that same category of "$#!+ does happen". In this case Adobe was able to (relatively) quickly restore services.

zoran,
I agree with you that a-la-carte should be an option but Adobe has near zero competition. That said, "Single App" is an option with the enterprise plans. It sounds to me like you or your company's software administrator should reach out to Adobe for volume licensing pricing.

 

[DCurry]

Here's my major problem with Creative Cloud:

Under the old way, let's say I purchased CS6 and created a bunch of files over the years. 5 years down the road I can still access my own files and edit them to my heart's content.

Under the cloud scenario, I can subscribe to CC today and create all my files. 5 years down the road, I can no longer access my own files unless I am still subscribing.

Sorry, when and if I upgrade my software should be MY choice, not Adobe's.

 

[mastegman]

Here's my major problem with Creative Cloud:

Under the old way, let's say I purchased CS6 and created a bunch of files over the years. 5 years down the road I can still access my own files and edit them to my heart's content.

Under the cloud scenario, I can subscribe to CC today and create all my files. 5 years down the road, I can no longer access my own files unless I am still subscribing.

Sorry, when and if I upgrade my software should be MY choice, not Adobe's.

Dan,

I see you use Prinergy. Prinergy is a product developed by Creo. Where are they now? Does Prinergy still work? Do you still have a service agreement with any of your suppliers? Do you look to Kodak for to support Prinergy? Does it ever have an upgrade? Which manufacturer of printing equipment doesn't offer ongoing service agreements? Which manufacturer of digital printing equipment doesn't require you to have one? Adobe didn't invent this business model, one which Chevalier adequately described.

As for your Adobe software, which applications/files can you NOT easily convert into older formats and maintain compatibility? Even if you are a CC user you are not precluded from using older versions of Adobe apps but don't look for any current features. You can do the same thing you have been doing for the last 10 or 20 years and go the same way as most of the printing industry, and that's not up.

Adobe sells software and they have recognized that the web is where it is. Apple was the one that responded first and left us all fro dead. They gave up worrying about print years ago. I'm not trying to promote Adobe but my point still stands. If they can't find a way to maintain a steady and predictable revenue stream they will stop making software. They're a business, not a charity.

mark

 

[DCurry]

Mark, when a shop buys Prinergy they can either buy the service agreement or not. If they do buy it, then upgrades are included in that price, not unlike a subscription. If they don't buy it, however, then when an upgrade comes out the shop can choose to pay for the upgrade outright, or leave well enough alone until they feel like they need/want to spend the money.

Adobe should give customers the choice between subscription and outright purchase. Kind of like deciding whether to lease or buy a car.